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Soon, very soon, I will be join the landed gentry with my very own 2 bedroom condo here in DC.

So, naturally, I want to celebrate by building my own gaming table.

I remember when we built the ones for the warmonger club we were able to get folding table legs and screw them directly onto plywood, where can I get them? I didn't see them at home depot?

Anyway the plan is a sheet of 6'x4' plywood and a sheet of 7' by 5' plywood bolted together (for more strength and to make a 6" gutter all around) then 2 2x4s on the bottom for more support. And finally table legs if they can be found, otherwise I have to get a whole table and put this on top.

It will be city table, buildings will be pictor studio's building blanks
<!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START-->www.pictorsstudio.shoppin...004008.htm<!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END-->
with hexagon sets to pimp them. May use some O scale buildings too.

Any advice for a city fight table maker? I'm getting into superhero and modern minis so I don't want it to be 40k only, hence I may only use 1 or 2 cityfight sets but not a whole table worth.

they probably don't sell the legs seperately, but you could just buy the card table and take the legs off. I can't imagine it being that much more expensive than buying the legs seperately if they can be.

I really like the city ruins that GW is putting out now. I'm using a combo of them, styrofoam, and plaster for my terrain pieces. I think the second best option would be the model railroad stuff.

My advice? Separate table for food and drinks.

KK, try Woodworkers Supply online; I've ordered from them in the past and they ship quickly and accurately. They sell several different style of folding table legs.

1. Buy a folding table

2. I like the idea of the gutter, as long as it doesn't interfere with reaching the middle of the table. the hardest part of that would be actually finding a 7'x5' sheet of plywood since the standard full sheet is 4'x8'. You could, of course buy two of those sheets and cut them down however.

3. Buy two 4'x6' sheet of plywood.

4. sandwich the 7'5' piece(s) between the two 4'x6' sheets.

5. paint the surface of one 4'x'6 Asphault gray (for your city battles), paint the other 4'x'6' green or tan or icy white depending on your taste in outdoorsy battles.

6. now you can assemble your table rather easily, and flip it over depending upon which type of terrain you wish to play on.

If I could make a more humble suggestion: buy a gaming mat, not one of the paper ones, but one of the sturdy cloth deals. The mats come as 4x6 deals Get two folding tables (or a piece of particle or MDF board of the appropriate size). Roll mat onto surface. Add terrain as needed. Done. PCeretti does that for his table (he's got a green one and a desert one), and they're fine, and a lot less hassle.

Folding legs from Home Depot:
http://www.homedepot.com/prel80/HDUS/EN_US/diy_main/pg_diy.jsp?CNTTYPE=PROD_META&CNTKEY=misc%2fsearchResults.jsp&BV_SessionID=@@@@0160088369.1153847466@@@@&BV_EngineID=ccgiaddiglfdehfcgelceffdfgidgll.0&MID=9876
I think HD may be phasing the folding legs out of their B&M stores. A few years back when I made a few work tables I had to try a few different stores before I found them.

IKEA is an other option for table legs. Not sure if they do folding legs, but they have a good selection of bolt on table legs.

For building construction, www.Hirstarts.com is always a great place to start. Even if you plan on using the Pictor blanks, the plaster bits can add a lot detail.

My new favorite site for buildings is:
http://www.fantasy-gelaende-modelle.de/vorseite/f.g.m.htm
Check out the links at the bottom of the page labled ÜBERSICHT/ MODELLE 2006

It's in German, but there are enough pics that no translation is needed. Apparently every thing is constructed from basic materials like foam & balsa wood. Below is a link to one of his how-tos
http://www.fantasy-gelaende-modelle.de/bau/seite_10.htm

If you really must insist on building your own table, there's always Terragenesis: here's a 'small gaming table' project
http://www.terragenesis.co.uk/infopages/page252.html

There's a nice set of tutorials on making a gaming table on the Drunk Dwarves website:

http://www.drunkdwarves.com/pages/artttgttcultimatetable.html
http://www.drunkdwarves.com/pages/artttgttctabletops.html

You may want to consider 'floor hammer', even if it is only a short term soluton a 6x4 short pile carpet makes a great gaming area and it is actually a lot more chilled out and relaxed than standing around a table, only issue is that if you don't clean your place regularly sitting on the floor may not be quite as pleasent an experience.

Personally I have come to much prefer floor hammer, if your opponent is taking a long time to get through movement you can just lay out on the floor and watch/drink beer

Hey Kyoto-san, I thought that Pictors was on a hiatus from the building blanks until August.  If not, I am pleased to hear it.  Matakishi's cork city is definately one you want to look through, he has some great ideas, and the city is very playable.  His PDF on building the buildings will be helpful in jazzing up the Pictors blanks.  Plasticville buildings should be useful as well, and you can get a ton of their "cape cod" houses for cheap on ebay.

If building a modular table, you should consider a method to lock the modular segments in, possibly a railing around the main play board.  Also, consider adding a wooden frame under the play surface to make sure that the board will be strong enough.

I'd say just don't build a table. Instead, get a couple of cheap card tables that can be connected together in groups of 1, 2, 4 and so on, allowing you to just use whatever terrain setup you want on an appropriately covered mat. You'll save a ton of space and money.

And hey, I noticed that you're in DC... as am I. If you're interested in getting together (We can run games on my massive dining table here, I live in DuPont) to game without having to drive to the suburbs, send me a private message and we can set something up.

I built a table and it ended up getting thrown out because the guy who's apartment it was at didnt get it out in time before he moved. Simple construction with two 3x4 pieces based on 2x4s. So I will just reconstruct a new one in the fall. I may try the double top or the terrain cloth both seem like a great idea. Also, has anyone tried building an all foam board a few inches tall to have proper trenches and craters?

Kid_Kyoto, what did you end up going with?

I thought this thread was dead! Sweet.

Yes, my terrain board has always been the 2" thick 4' x 8' foam. The foam is primarily used is as insulation. It comes in pink or blue usually, but the stuff I use as my actual board is the white stuff with plastic on both sides. The plastic makes spraying it and gluing things to it safer since it won't eat the foam. The problem with cutting trenches in it is that the thinner it gets the weaker it is. So, unless you have an actual table to rest the foam on it will collapse. I use a ping pong table since that has the perfect dimensions to play a 4' x 8' game and still have room around the edges for casualties and reserves and stuff.

The origional way I was going was to cut the foam into 2' x 2' sections and use them as modular terrain for creating rivers, trenches and stuff. This works OK, but the table will end up with a pretty noticible grid pattern on it. It can be used pretty effectively to measure ranges before you actually declare your shots which doesn't really have quite the impact it did in 3rd edition, but it's still a slight problem.

Isn't the cut in trenches solved by stacking foam?

I built my own table.  I have the luxury of a full basement, plus I had the benefit (up till recently) of living alone in my 4 bedroom house (lots of gaming space).

The construction was easy, and I believe the materials cost less than $100.  I also made it sturdy enough that if you bumped the table, it wouldn't move.  Here is what I did:

4"x4" legs (I originally wanted casters to roll it, but that negated any 'stability')
2"x4" framing of the table top (which was a 1/2" piece of ply, 4'x6')
2"x4" framing midway up the legs, with another piece of ply there, for a huge amount of storage space under the table. 

I also assembled it with long screws, so that if I ever needed to move it, I could disassemble it.

I was going to paint and flock the 4x6 tabletop, but instead have been laying a 4x8 piece of ply on top, and using various felts, fabrics, etc. to cover it depending on the game and terrain.

I have pics, but just not at work

My thought was to have a table that has a static base but add other pieces of plywood depending on the terrain. The foam trenches would be just another surface on top of the plywood. I would need mine to be portable in the sense of taking it down once we were done playing since it would probably sit in my living room until I moved to a much bigger and needed apartment.

Like Cruentus, I have plenty of room in my basement.
I built one like his.
I used the best quality I could get, /75" thick pressboard for the top.
It is very smooth & nice to look at.
It was built with wargaming AND role=-playing in mind, so I wanted a nice surface.

I ALWAYS suggest a table like this, when possible.

It sounds, though, like you want something you can stow away easily enough.

First of all, do NOT use card tables. They're short & not sturdy enough.
Don't even "appropriate" legs from one.

Get legs from a folding table.
These can be found easily enough on old folding tables (of all places) and -though I don't recall= you CAN buy them.
the best thing about these is that they have locks for stability.

Screw these to two 2x4 pieces, about 3'8" long (to the wider side, not the narrow one).
Screw a top (the better you buy, the better it'll be), cut to your size, to these legs.
Add the2x4 braces to the bottom sides, as planned, but add them to the ends, as well.
One more across the 4' center of the table of the table & you're golden.
Stowable, portable & sturdy.

Eric

Dammit man if you are going to build a gameing table build a gameing table.

 

http://ultimategamingtable.org/

here are the plans im using for my current table. i plan to use it for warhammer and flames of war. its modular.

at the very bottom

im about 70% done with it. here is another direct link to the first part
seen here

Posted By Dice Monkey 08/11/2006 1:22 AM

Dammit man if you are going to build a gameing table build a gameing table.

 

http://ultimategamingtable.org/

That...that is just so beautiful...

I now have a new modeling project!!!